There’s a specific niche of tech bro that likes to hand out the Autobiography of a Yogi. Something about it being on Steve Jobs’ iPad.

My introduction was a different flavor of tech bro. My father. The man finds it a fairly shallow onramp for folks who are interested in the culture. So for much of my younger years, I remember him handing out copies of it.

I got my copy in a different way. He had this habit of leaving books on my dresser expecting me to read them. A surprising amount of Osho. Who needs to talk about complicated topics with your kid when the culture teaches you to outsource it. Interesting choice of bedtime stories too, instead of the Hobbit, I got “Swami” Rama’s autobiography. I guess technically I can still check off parent reading you fantasy before bed.

But back to the point, he also left that specific book.

So at some point in high school I read it; noticed a couple things.

Similar to me and my Guru. He had never met his Guru, Lahiri Mahasaya.

But he had Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri to teach him. In my parallel, I had the man I used to call Dr. Saheb.

He learned a technique and called it Kriya Yoga, I learned it as Hamsa Yoga.

My teacher at the time, Dr. Pranav Pandya, had written Odyssey of the Enlightened to detail the life and journey of Pandit Sriram Sharma Acharya. Swamiji had written The Holy Science. About 110 pages, significantly shorter than the other Odyssey. Not to mention, it had four parts, only one of which was translated into English. So I figured why not read the shorter book.

I learned short does not mean quick.

Introduction.

Swamiji starts off by going through a lot of math to try calculating dates for the various Yugas. While he does some impressive work trying to map the years, astronomy, scripture, and the manifestation of it through history. I personally find this the least interesting part of the book.

Gospel. 18 sutras.

Goal. 22 sutras.

Procedure. 32 sutras.

Revelation. 12 sutras.

Conclusion.

I wanted to go through each of the chapters, but it started turning into a lecture with a lot of vocab words. Here’s the gist of it, Swamiji explains Dharmic concepts and cross references them with Abrahamic scriptures.

Surprisingly dense for that few of pages.

Meanwhile, the first part of Odyssey of the Enlightened was a much more straightforward read.

Longer for sure, but it’s a kinda dramatic biography of a Guru written by their disciple.

Tradeoffs. A biography is easier to read, especially if you want story to follow. But a set of sutras whose commentary also pull in direct links to verses in the New Testament is more useful if you want a model.